Murder My Sweet - 1944

Murder, My Sweet, Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, 1944 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.

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Original release titled Farewell, My Lovely - the second screen adaptation of Raymond Chandler's second novel of the same name, a 1940 hard-boiled tale that was a superb, complex, shadowy film noir of murder, corruption, blackmail, double-cross and double identity, with witty dialogue and cynical voice-over narration. The film opens in wartime Los Angeles, where tough yet vulnerable, blindfolded/bandaged gumshoe detective Philip Marlowe (played by 30s musical crooner Powell in a dramatic role switch) is grilled under a bright light by police interrogators.

In flashback, he tells a convoluted, bewildering tale. He was hired by recently-released, brutish, urgent ex-con Moose Malloy (Mazurki) to search for his missing ex-girlfriend/lover Velma Valento (Trevor) who sold him out eight years earlier. And then he was also commissioned as a bodyguard to accompany an effeminate gigolo Lindsay Marriott (Walton) (associated with underworld Jules Amthor (Kruger)) during a ransom payoff for stolen jewels. When Marriott is killed and Marlowe is blackjacked unconscious ("a black pool opened up"), he becomes the prime suspect for the murder. Millionaire's daughter Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley) reveals her interest in the case, which brings Marlowe for a visit to the Grayle mansion in Brentwood where he meets Mr. Grayle (Miles Mander) and his much younger wife Helen (Trevor again).

During his investigation, Marlowe is drugged and experiences drug-induced hallucinations and nightmares ("a crazy, coked-up dream") when pursued through a series of identical doors by a man with a giant hypodermic needle (filled with truth serum), after being roughed up by master-crook Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger). Amthor is a blackmailer, involved in setting up rich women as targets for Marriott. The owner of the jewels - mysterious, flirtatious and slinky Helen Grayle, also hires the detective to locate the stolen jade necklace (which she later reveals is not actually stolen). Marlowe navigates through a perilous world, becoming further entangled with and threatened by despicable high- and low-class criminals.

The final showdown occurs at the Grayles' beach house, where Helen is killed by her husband. [The final shoot-out revealed that mysterious, flirtatious, gold-digging double-identity Mrs. Helen Grayle - also known as Velma Valento, had set up numerous individuals over the theft of jade jewelry, and was indeed a murderous femme fatale.] Both Moose and Mr. Grayle also shoot and kill each other. (It is also revealed that Moose had murdered Amthor). A witness to all the killings, Ann Grayle is able to clear temporarily-blinded Marlowe of all charges - and accompanies him home in the back seat of a taxi - where they share a kiss.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town - 1936

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Jean Arthur, Gary Cooper, 1936 Giclee Print
12 in. x 9 in.

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Capra's populist romantic screwball comedy based on Opera Hat, a Saturday Evening Post story by Clarence Budington Kelland. Mandrake Falls, Vermont greeting-card poetry-writing, tuba-playing rube Longfellow Deeds (Cooper) inherits $20 million from his wealthy NYC uncle, but eccentrically decides to be philanthropic and give it to Depression-Era needy. A hot-shot news reporter Babe Bennett (Arthur) poses as an out-of-work stenographer to get close to him for a story - calling him "The Cinderella Man." She falls in love, defending him when he is declared insane and goes to trial, and is accused of being 'pixilated.' Eventually, he defends himself and is acquitted by the judge: "...you are not only sane but you're the sanest man that ever walked into this courtroom."

Metropolis - 1927

Metropolis, 1928 Framed Art Print
20.375 in. x 26.375 in.

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A stylized, visually-compelling, melodramatic silent film set in the 21st century city of Metropolis - Lang's German Expressionistic masterpiece helped develop the science-fiction genre. The luxurious, futuristic city of skyscrapers and bridges is stratified and divided into an upper, elite, privileged class and a subterranean, nameless, oppressed, ant-like worker / slave class. Freder (Frohlich), the young son of a ruling, aristocratic capitalist Master Joh Fredersen (Abel), discovers the miserable life of the proletariat when he notices a beautiful young woman Maria (Helm) with a group of worker children and pursues her into the squalid, labyrinthine underground slums. The wistful, Christ-like young woman urges her comrades to peacefully await their salvation. After discovering their meeting, Freder's father instructs mad scientist Rotwang (Klein-Rogge) to create an evil robotic Maria look-alike that will manipulate the workers, preach rebellion, and cause their elimination. The false Maria goes beserk and incites the workers to revolt, causing a cataclysmic flood. Freder and the real rescued Maria lead the worker children out of danger, and Joh Fredersen is convinced to reconcile with the workers - Capital and Labor united in Love.

To Kill A Mockingbird - 1962

To Kill a Mockingbird Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) is a much-loved, critically-acclaimed, classic trial film. It exhibits a dramatic tour-de-force of acting, a portrayal of childhood innocence (told from a matured adult understanding), and a progressive, enlightened 60s message about racial prejudice, violence, moral tolerance and dignified courage.

The Academy Award winning screenplay was faithfully adapted by screenwriter Horton Foote from the 1960 novel of the same name by Harper Lee - who had written a semi-autobiographical account of her small-town Southern life (Monroeville, Alabama), her widower father/attorney Amasa Lee, and its setting of racial unrest. [This was Lee's first and sole novel - and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1960.] The poor Southern town of deteriorating homes was authentically re-created on a Universal Studios' set. Released in the early 60s, the timely film reflected the state of deep racial problems and social injustice that existed in the South.

The film begins by portraying the innocence and world of play of a tomboyish six year-old girl named Scout (Mary Badham) and her ten year-old brother Jem (Phillip Alford), and their perceptions of their widower attorney father Atticus (Gregory Peck). They also fantasize about a 'boogeyman' recluse who inhabits a mysterious house in their neighborhood. They are abruptly brought out of their insulated and carefree world by their father's unpopular but courageous defense of a black man named Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) falsely accused of raping a Southern white woman. Although racism dooms the accused man, a prejudiced adult vengefully attacks the children on a dark night - they are unexpectedly delivered from real harm in the film's climax by the reclusive neighbor, "Boo" Radley.

Sunset Boulevard - 1950

Sunset Boulevard Masterprint
17 in. x 11 in.

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Sunset Boulevard (1950) is a classic black comedy/drama, and perhaps the most acclaimed, but darkest film-noir story about "behind the scenes" Hollywood, self-deceit, spiritual and spatial emptiness, and the price of fame, greed, narcissism, and ambition. The mood of the film is immediately established as decadent and decaying by the posthumous narrator - a dead man floating face-down in a swimming pool in Beverly Hills.

With caustic, bitter wit in a story that blends both fact and fiction and dream and reality, co-writer/director Billy Wilder realistically exposes (with numerous in-jokes) the corruptive, devastating influences of the new Hollywood and the studio system by showing the decline of old Hollywood legends many years after the coming of sound. The screenplay was based on the story A Can of Beans by Wilder and Brackett - this was the last collaborative film effort of Brackett and Wilder who had worked together on many films since 1938.

Letter From an Unknown Woman - 1948

Letter from an Unknown Woman, Joan Fontaine, 1948 Photographic Print
18 in. x 24 in.
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Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948) is the classic romantic film - a lush tearjerker par excellence - of the bittersweet theme of unrequited, lost love (it's considered a quintessential "woman's picture"). Legendary European director Max Ophuls' deeply-moving, timeless film, considered his greatest and most successful American film but a film unlike most Hollywood films. [The director's name was given an alternate American spelling, OPULS, in the credits, as in his other American films of the 40s.] It demonstrates his lyrical, gliding camera movements, long tracking shots, atmospheric melancholy and romantic dialogue, the recreated flavor of turn-of-the century Vienna, and the exquisite acting talents of its delicate blonde heroine - portrayed by 31 year-old actress Joan Fontaine.
The film's literate screenplay was written by previous Academy Award winner Howard Koch (screenwriter for Casablanca (1942)), and adapted from a 1922 short story by Stefan Zweig. Fontaine's own production company produced the film. John Houseman, Orson Welles' former partner and the uncredited co-author of Citizen Kane (1941), was the film's producer, through Rampart Productions (a company owned by William Dozier and his wife, actress Joan Fontaine).

Although the film was not a commercial success upon its release and criticized as sentimental soap-opera, it has attained well-deserved status as one of the greatest films of its kind. Its cyclically-told tale of romantic yearning and pining for love is about an imaginary romance, embodied in the doomed, delusional (and illusory) relationship of the two romantic leads: a young neighbor girl's (Fontaine) steadfast, sacrificial love for a self-absorbed, frivolous dilettante concert pianist (Jourdan). A seduction leads to an unexpected pregnancy, and then to marriage to another. Both face an inextricable impasse and experience numerous missed opportunities over a span of twenty years - and ultimately fail to attain true romance. The heart-breaking tale of their relationship is communicated through flashbacks and the night-time reading of the deathbed letter written by the dying woman - she is the wife of the man the pianist must duel at the coming dawn.

It's A Wonderful Life - 1946

It's a Wonderful Life, Donna Reed, James Stewart, 1946 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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It's A Wonderful Life (1946), originally made for Liberty Films, is one of the most popular and heartwarming films ever made by director Frank Capra. Frank Capra regarded this film as his own personal favorite - it was also James Stewart's favorite of all his feature films.

It was actually a box-office flop at the time of its release, and only became the Christmas movie classic in the 1970s due to repeated television showings at Christmas-time when its copyright protection slipped and it fell into the public domain in 1974 and TV stations could air it for free. [Republic Pictures restored its copyright claim to the film in 1993, with exclusive video rights to it. Currently, it can be shown only on the NBC-TV network, and its distribution rights belong to Paramount Pictures.]

The film's screenplay (credited as being written by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Capra himself, with additional scenes by Jo Swerling) was based on "The Greatest Gift," an original short story first written on a Christmas card by Philip Van Doren Stern. Uncredited for their work on the script were Dorothy Parker, Dalton Trumbo, and Clifford Odets.